| Have you had luck winning any referrals into the companies? Often that is the best way to find work, unless you are in a location where your network is limited. If you are someone who is not good at networking and hence finding referrals is hard, there perhaps other things you can look at. After spending about 9 years working for myself, I decided to go back to work for others. I was in a completely new country, and hence zero network. Strategy I used was just find 5 employers and figure out what exactly they are looking for. Be very knowledgeable about their culture, tech, people, and work. Having (some) sales background was quite useful, as doing research on prospects was a known quantity. I used a copy writer to help me write my resume and 5 different cover letters which target these companies. All of them were a great match for me. Out of 5, I was able to get technical tasks for 5. Successfully complete it for 4.[1] Land interviews, pair programming sessions with all. I rejected two companies, and got offers from other 2. If you are dealing with external recruiters, remember it is in their best interest for you to land the job. So ask them lot of questions on what to expect in the interviews. See if they can connect you with someone who has gone through the interview process or better yet is hired by the company. If internal interviewer, then you can still ask lot of question. Specific questions like which skills do you expect me to demonstrate during the process? Is there any specific background reading about the interview process you can point me to? Glassdoor also often has lot of interesting information on interview questions and process at large companies. And do not worry about rejections. I know it feels really bad, but sometimes you have to see that they are rejecting you because you are not a match for them. And hence they are not a match for you. Creator of homebrew was rejected by google in a technical interview. :) Sometimes companies value one type of technical knowledge (say abstract/theory), and you might value different type (getting things done). [1] The company where I failed technical task - reasoning was too many comments in the code and checked in generated files in git. Hardly something I personally would have worried about as an interviewer, but again everyone has different criteria. I have seen people give bad reviews for programming tests because formatting was un-java like, or overuse of the final keyword. |